> You must be then using history the way a drunkard uses a lamppost: for support rather than illumination.
Why would I be interested in other time periods when talking about the similarities between our time, and a phenomenon that did not exist in those other time periods?
If I state that someone on the street looks like Bill Murray, would you pull up pictures of John Cleese on your phone to refute my claim?
That's what I've addressed already: you're not interested in history as a journey of discovery which is taken in order to broaden your horizons -- you're only interested in it as a way to support your pre-existing opinions. Anything that can't support your pre-existing opinions is of no use to you.
It's as if the people in the antebellum South were only reading history books that proved to them how Blacks are inferior, while skipping over books on topics like Roman Empire or early Muslim empires (that could actually prove to them that some of very capable emperors/caliphs were actually Black.) They had no use for that information as it couldn't support their chattel slavery system.
Why would I be interested in other time periods when talking about the similarities between our time, and a phenomenon that did not exist in those other time periods?
If I state that someone on the street looks like Bill Murray, would you pull up pictures of John Cleese on your phone to refute my claim?